Conversation

interestingly the first and second klans had different social bases, more so because the european counterparts of which would form the mass base of fascism

the first klan was like a southern freikorps of formally demobilized confederate soldiers, world historicly traumatized on civil war battlefields as wwi veterans were in the trenches, and berserking against a cataclysmic emancipatory revolution--the end of racial slavery in america and the high tide of communism in europe

the second klan was like a nationwide country club for rural, small town elites and the future suburban middle class, which is how the nazi party would function for rustic german professionals, shopkeepers, and nationalistic yeoman whom marx called pejoratively the reactionary peasantry

the fact that these two social formations did not coincide historically in america as they did in interwar europe partly explains why classical fascism never emerged in the us